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Those were the words of four-year-old Dae’Anna, consoling her mother Lavish Reynolds after she witnessed the police shoot and kill her boyfriend Philando Castile.

Those words are now scarred into the psyche of America, much like words that came before it: “Hands up, don’t shoot.” “I can’t breathe.” “It’s not real.”

If you haven’t realized that the system of policing isn’t working for the black community, you haven’t been paying attention. Just hours after the killing of Alton Sterling, a four-year-old child witnessed someone getting shot and bleeding out while she sat in the backseat. The system didn’t work for her, her mother or for Philando Castile. The system didn’t work for Alton Sterling, or for Mike Brown, or for Freddie Gray or for countless others.

But here’s something we miss in this climate of police violence: the system of policing isn’t working for those working in law enforcement either. It doesn’t serve anyone.

When I watched the video taken by Lavish Reynolds, I was blown away by the cool and calm demeanor in her voice and how it was offset by the complete panic in the voice of the officer. His was filled with fear.

And why wouldn’t it be? Behind that trigger lies a man who just took the life of another man in front of a child. I’ve worked with enough people in prison, as well as veterans who have taken the lives of others, to know that no human being is immune to the fear, guilt and shame that comes with the taking of another’s life.

The system of policing is one that relies on violence, fear, repression and a colonizer mentality. But the individuals who are employed to enforce that mentality are human beings with a human psyche, just like any other. It’s silly to assume that these men and women aren’t impacted by the violence they witness and participate in every day. No human being can participate in the levels of heightened violence that police are engaged in without being affected by it.

The tragedy in Dallas is a response from a people within a community that has lived with that fear and violence for generations. If you belong to a community that is constantly facing murder, incarceration and dehumanization, it should come as no surprise when members of that community decide that they have had enough and react with violence. It is tragic, yet should not be surprising if you can see their perspective. Similarly, just because police experience that violence from “the other side,” it should not surprise us that it may affect them in similar ways, and that they may similarly react with outbursts of violence.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote that “the white man’s personality is greatly distorted by segregation, and his soul is greatly scarred.” He said that the work of defeating segregation was for the “bodies of black folks and the souls of white folks.” He understood that to be a white supremacist, to hold hatred in your heart for so many and to inflict violence on others destroys your soul.

Others have written about the history of policing in the United States — especially in the South — and its roots in the slave patrol. So it should come as no great leap to consider that participating in policing in 21st century America could scar one’s soul.

This is not about being an apologist for the individuals responsible for the killing of black life. It is not about comparing the suffering of black communities to that of law enforcement. But in nonviolence, we know that if you don’t understand the perspective of those who you are in conflict with, you do not understand the conflict. You do not need to agree with, excuse or justify the other’s perspective, you simply need to understand it so you can see the complete picture.

And part of the picture looks like this: Cops are human. They work for an institution with historical ties to slavery and a long legacy of racism. They are indoctrinated in a culture of “us vs. them,” of doing “whatever is necessary so you get home,” of fear, distrust, and dehumanization of those deemed as being on “the other side.” They are taught to fear for their lives. They are trained almost exclusively in tactics of violence and repression. They are sent into situations of conflict every day with those limited tools, into communities where they are playing out tensions that have been brewing for hundreds of years.

Looking at that picture, no one should be surprised at incidents of police violence, and we should all understand that to some extent, it is rooted in the spiritual and emotional degradation that results from being immersed in such a violent institution.

I’ve been thinking lately about Eric Casebolt, the officer who responded to a call at a pool party in McKinney, Texas and proceeded to throw a young girl onto the ground and point his gun at other teenagers.

Casebolt should have been fired immediately, and his record should follow him everywhere, preventing him from ever having employment as a cop or even as a security guard.

If we look more into the history of that conflict, the story of Casebolt’s own trauma begins to emerge. The pool party was the third call that he attended to that day. His first was a suicide where he witnessed a man blow his head off in front of his family, and had to console the family. Immediately after, he was called to another attempted suicide, where he had to talk a young girl down from jumping off a ledge — also in front of her family. By the time he reached the pool party, he was an emotional wreck.

Again, that’s not to excuse his actions as an individual. But understanding that context and perspective also allows us to point our fingers at the larger culprit: a system of policing that didn’t care enough about Casebolt’s mental health that they couldn’t even give him the rest of the day off. A culture of machismo that doesn’t give space for cops like Casebolt to grieve or process what he just went through.

When the system comes together to defend cops like Casebolt, their defense of him is a smokescreen. The system doesn’t care about any individuals — the individuals are dispensable. It is trying to distract us from the fact that the system itself is corrupt. If the system truly cared about the people who work in the system, it would create fundamental changes to stop the killings of black people, thereby decreasing the chances of retaliatory killings like the ones in Dallas.

But for us, the more we focus our anger on the individual who pulled the trigger, the more we are letting the system off the hook. And the more the system defends the individual, the more we want to see him or her locked up, as if they are the problem. Hook, line and sinker.

Individual accountability requires healing, and a space for the perpetrator of the harm to feel remorse for their actions. I’ve learned over time that people can’t empathize with the pain that they caused until their own pain and story has been honored. So, can we build a movement that honors the pain of the officers, creates spaces to help them see the pain that they cause, and — following the example of former Baltimore officer Michael Wood — allows them to defect from a system that doesn’t serve them either?

And can we hold that level of compassion without pacifying our righteous indignation towards a system that doesn’t value human life? How do we build a fierce and powerful resistance movement that addresses the individual and the system? What does it look like to hold individuals accountable with compassion, and systems accountable with indignation?

#AltonSterling, #PhilandoCastile and #Dallas are sobering reminders that violent institutions are causing human death on all sides. And until we find justice for all people, their spirits will be with us, nudging us to answer those questions.

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Kazu Haga is a Kingian Nonviolence trainer based in Oakland, California. Born in Japan, he has been involved in many social change movements since he was 17. He conducts regular trainings with youth, incarcerated populations and activists. He is the founder and coordinator of East Point Peace Academy, and is on the board of Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, PeaceWorkers and the OneLife Institute.

18 comments

Right on Kazu. As always, you have concisely summed up what many people are struggling to comprehend. Understanding an opponent’s truth is an important tenet of Kingian Nonviolence. If we perpetuate the “us vs. them” mentality, then we will never move forward from where we are today. There is so much work to do. We need everyone to join us. Please.

It serves the capitalists, that is a very serious issue. The other issue is the “reasoning capacity” of officers, they need training?? why do they worry about the little stuff, they need to ignore the usual like everyone else…I really don’t care if a teen spits in public, but i do care if the store is robbed….hello.

Thank you for sharing this perspective Kazu. A fair and just examination of both sides that brings us right back to the fact that we are all in this together seeking the same human needs. Your summary of a nonviolence perspective was lovingly persuasive.

More thoughts on this: ‪#‎Blacklivesmatter‬ is not an opinion, it is a universal fact. Life is sacred, and the use of violence to take something sacred away from peoples and communities goes against our human nature. I believe that to be a universal truth. I have heard many stories from individuals who have taken others’ lives. For some of them, it took them years to see that truth and to feel remorse. Even for them though, they all acknowledge that all during those years, they were carrying an immense load of guilt and shame, of the internal, emotional and spiritual violence that results from having taken someone’s life. Wearing a badge and a uniform doesn’t absolve you from that.

When cops kill black lives, it affects their soul. The system tries to justify it, telling the cops that their own life was in danger, that they did the right thing, that they are not accountable, that the shooting was justified. In doing so, it takes away their ability to feel remorse, and to heal from the fact that they just went against their human nature and took the life of another.

This system is forcing people to commit acts of murder, and systematically taking away any opportunity to heal from that. It is furthering acts of violence by forcing the cops to internalize it and repress whatever feelings of guilt and remorse they have. That is an act of violence on the cops themselves.
This system doesn’t work for anybody. It needs to change. Now.

Unlike an unnamed President, officers do their best to honor their oath of office. This oath includes the enforcing of all laws. Of course, when faced with multiple violations, an officer is expected to handle the most egregious. “JB” is suggesting that officers should pick and choose what laws he considers “important” to enforce, and to ignore all others. Each law was enacted for a specific reason. “Jaywalking” enforcement is meant to save the lives of pedestrians. DUI arrests are meant to save innocent motorists from a weapon far more dangerous than a gun. Of course warnings also have a valid place in enforcement. Even officers do not agree with all laws, but they are charged with enforcing them, regardless. C.H.P. Officers each year send recommendations to the legislature for changes in existing laws. Some are acted upon and many are not.

I must take issue with the honorable Kazu Haga’s contention that when an officer shoots someone it is murder. When a civilian reluctantly exercises his God given right to self-defense, everyone does not automatically consider that “murder”. Also, “Black Lives Matter” is an unspoken and unacceptable allegation that black lives are more important than white, brown, or yellow lives. I would expect that any God would consider all lives equally important. If this group feels justified in existing, they should at the very least, rename their group as “Black Lives Also Matter”. Lastly, the public expects a great deal of its officers. They are expected to be normal, well adjusted human beings and to have sympathy, empathy, kindness and understanding. Yet when approaching a car at night the officers are aware that in a split second they may have to either save a life, welcome a new life into the world, or even to take a life. That is expecting tremendous flexibility from a normal human being! And when an officer is forced to take any life, not just a black life, whether it is to save their own life or the life of another innocent person, it has a profound effect on them for the rest of their lives, no matter how justified it was! However, it is one of those extremely difficult actions he is expected to take. Officers don’t really feel that they are paid enough to either get killed or to be forced to take the life of another. However, this is what they signed up for. With these type of situations and the pain, death, blood and man’s inhumanity to man to which they are regularly subjected, the toll is very high, and officers have an unusually high suicide rate.

Thank you very much for discussing the critical importance of knowing about, understanding, and managing deeper issues that are causing the perpetuation of an unhealthy and unsustainable policing system.

Being able to understand the position of whom we would prefer to depersonalize, and view as “other” is a critical component of being able to develop compassion, and to institute effective, positive changes.

Provocative piece. This is the second time recently, it has been pointed out that someone cannot feel empathy for the pain they’ve caused, until their own story has been told and their own pain recognized.

I hope you are correct re the feelings and problems of the police officers. What I fear is that just as in war, you get people to kill by convincing them the enemy is the “other” and is not like us. I think that is how the police view the people of color they are supposed to serve and protect.

I Just wrote a song and put a snippet of it on youtube. I want to dedicate it to the cops how lost there lives in Dallas, the recent killing of Alton, Philando, Delrawn and all the loved ones left behind. We need PEACE, JUSTICE, COMPASSION, UNITY AND HOPE. Its time to band together as people and as a nation. Its time to PRAY! PLEASE SHARE THIS VIDEO, I WANT IT TO REACH THOSE FAMILIES AND THE WORLD. GOD BLESS!

Bravo! exactly right, however “the system” is us, we are all allowing it to function corruptly. The system is everyone, all of us, people are the system. It runs itself because we are in lockstep with it.

Kazu, thanks for your respect for us, that you share these wise words expecting they will get a hearing. We can indeed hold in our minds more than one reality at a time, and in our hearts the suffering of more than one side in this escalating conflict. I remember how mistaken we were when I, as a young man, joined the chorus of scorn toward poor and working class white men in the South who were members of the Ku Klux Klan. We had no idea what made them susceptible to such a degree of status anxiety that they would dump their fears on black people of their own class.

Nor did we have any idea how much the whole thing was a manipulation that served the rich of the South, who had a very great interest in dividing the working class less it unite (as decades earlier it showed signs of doing) in order to revolt against the Masters of both.

I hope, Kazu, you follow your thread another step and point out not only the dimension of historic, structural racism that accounts for violent police behavior, and the sexism that limits access to healing from trauma, but also the classism that serves the folks at the top. After all, how could police possibly be humane when their most important job is to protect private property that functions to disadvantage most of the population?

Nice perspective, Kazu! A much needed contribution to the national discussion that helps us move away from the “us vs them” mentality that supports the belief in the need for violence on both sides of the policing issue.

In keeping with what George added about who benefits from the division of the disadvantaged, I have come to believe that there is only one thing that requires violent power, that you cannot achieve with nonviolent power. Belief that violence is the most powerful guarantor of safety is critical in allowing a few people to control the many. The things that most human beings long for are better achieved with nonviolent power. My hope is, that if we can remove the belief that violence is necessary for safety, the few will no longer have the minions to keep this terrible inequality in place, and they as well as everyone else, will benefit. Thanks to you and Waging Nonviolence for this important and ongoing work.

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